Kurdish National Council calls for release of its two members

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdish National Council (KNC) on Thursday called for the release of two members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in Syria (PDK-S) who were reportedly kidnapped in Al-Muabbada (a.k.a. Girkê Legê) in the province of Hasakah on Tuesday.

The Kurdish National Council (KNC), an umbrella organization consisting of the PDK-S and other Syrian Kurdish parties opposed to the rule of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in northeast Syria, in the statement called on all human rights organizations and international institutions to prevent these violations against citizens and activists.

"These arrests come at a time when the people are living in a suffocating economic crisis and the collapse of the Syrian lira, which has increased the prices of goods, services and medical services, and at the same time, the PYD imposes taxes on citizens,” the KNC said

Read More: Two Syrian Kurdish party members kidnapped in northern Syria

"This bad situation in which our people live, forces many of our people to sell their property and migrate in order to find security and livelihood, and many of them even before reaching those countries lose their lives in sea and forests.”

The KNC underlined that the PYD aims to “scare the citizens and tighten the security restrictions on the citizens, to prevent any mass reactions and demonstrations” against the current political and economical conditions in Syrian Kurdistan (also known as Rojava).

In the past, dozens of supporters of the KNC have been arrested, and their offices burned or attacked by forces aligned to the local PYD-led Autonomous Administration in Northeast Syria.

The KNC in 2020 held several months of talks with the PYD with US support, but so far these talks have not resumed due to intra-Kurdish tensions.